Routledge, who has just stepped down as chief of staff for strategy, policy and plans at RAF HQ Air Command, was speaking at a conference showing the latest developments in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones.

He said drones could play a vital role in Afghanistan, in preparation for troops' routes, though their detection of improvised explosive devices – weaponry planted by the Taliban that has killed many British troops in Afghanistan in recent months, including the bomb disposal expert Captain Daniel Shepherd, who died on Monday.

British and American forces already use Reaper unmanned aircraft, but concern is being expressed within the forces that not enough resources are being allocated for such technology.

Routledge, who has previously held important posts within Nato, told the conference in Newport, south Wales, that the MoD was "not that good at agility and embracing in its normal planning emerging technologies and new opportunities and ideas". He continued: "Our processes are just too bureaucratic and unwieldy to seize these moments."

Routledge, who remains in the RAF until the autumn, said the potential of unmanned planes and vehicles was "enormous" but that more "drive, effort, enthusiasm" was needed to push projects through.

He said there were many questions as to which sort of drones could be used and how they could best be deployed. But he added: "In the absence of clear direction from the strategists in the Ministry of Defence I think all of these questions are yet to be truly answered."

Routledge, who was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the Queen's birthday honours, also said there was a "marked reluctance" from the RAF to embrace drones and wondered if there may be "something in the culture" holding it back.

"The RAF is a fighting service. We fly and fight from the air. We drop bombs, we break stuff. If somebody gets airborne to try to fight us we shoot them down. It's what we do."

A second RAF serviceman, based at the air warfare centre at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, gave examples of how unmanned aircraft were being used. He showed video footage of a building in which a sniper was hiding being blown up by a drone controlled by a pilot 6,000 miles away.

The serviceman, who asked not to be named, described an instance in which a convoy had been alerted to an IED hidden in a culvert because of information gleaned from a drone.